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Thursday, 30 May 2013

Well, that's the plan, anyway. We've only gone and bought a tent! I've always wanted to take my little family camping - I had so many amazing family camping holidays as a child, touring through Europe with a small secondhand tent, and later in a plush eurocamp job. Nothing better than long days outdoors, cooking on a gas stove, playing cards by lamplight and sleeping under canvas. It has, however, taken me quite a while to bring the husband around to the idea. His only experience of camping hithertofore was a doomed tent-in-a-field week as a child with his own family, under the bossy direction of some die-hard no-mod-cons family friends. I get the impression that none of them ever spoke to each other again after that ill-fated 'holiday'.

After hours of research and interrogation of friends and family, we chose this family tent, the Vango Samara 600. It's enormous! We don't have the canopy, and I'm finding it hard to imagine how we could possibly need any extra space.

When the tent arrived, nothing was going to stop me from pitching it straight away in the garden. I shrugged aside the warning that it was a two-man job and pitched in. I was impossibly red in the face when I went to pick the elders up from school that afternoon, but it was worth it. Of course, there's always the danger that the husband will say that I might as well pitch it solo every time now that I've proved how easy it is.

I would really love to hear your family camping tips if you have any - top campsites, essential kit, anything and everything! It's amazing what an evangelical bunch campers are, I've really felt
that everyone I've spoken to genuinely wants us to enjoy
camping. I really can't wait.